A recently introduced piece of legislation would expand Connecticut’s vexatious requester statute, which allows public agencies to petition the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) to temporarily ignore Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from “nuisance” requesters. The bill would expand the grounds on which a requester could be found to be a nuisance to include threatening or harassing conduct, even if it was not related to a request.
Connecticut is one of a handful of states where government officials can be allowed to temporarily ignore nuisance requests from people who use FOIA requests not primarily to obtain information but to harass public officials. So-called vexatious requesters often file large numbers of requests, often filed within a short period of time and each seeking numerous lists of similar records, and repeatedly contact public officials about the status of those requests.
As the law currently stands, any public agency official who feels an individual is using FOIA to harass them can file a petition with the FOIC asking for the ability to not comply with requests from that individual for up to one year. A finding that a requester is vexatious is based on the number of requests filed and pending, their scope, the language of the requests and of communication about them, and “a pattern of conduct that amounts to an abuse of the right to access information under the Freedom of Information Act or an interference with the operation of the agency.”
The FOIC votes on whether petitions meet the burden of proving a requester is vexatious and justify restricting FOI rights. In the first case before them, the FOIC adopted definitions related to several of the laws provisions, including Merriam-Webster’s dictionary definition of vexatious and a pattern of abusive conduct. Those definitions created precedent that guides how the FOIC rules in vexatious requester cases.
SB 466 proposes expanding the types of conduct the FOIC could consider in determining whether a requester should be labelled vexatious. It expands the existing language in statute that allows the “nature, content, language or subject matter of other oral and writeen” communications to be considered to include “threatening or harassing conduct that took place at or outside of the agency’s office regardless of whether such conduct was related to the request.”
The bill would also allow public agencies to ignore requests from individuals labelled vexatious multiple times for a longer period of time: up to three years for a second or subsequent finding. The FOIC has ruled in East Lyme’s favor on two separate petitions asking that David Godbout be labelled vexatious.
The bill’s language expanding the law to harassment unrelated to a FOIA request has raised concerns from the FOIC.
“[T]he Commission strongly believes that there must be a nexus between any conduct considered and a history of making records requests under the FOI Act, in determining that a person is a ‘vexatious requester.'” the FOIC’s written testimony on the bill states. That testimony also encouraged legislators to define the terms “threatening” and “harassing.”
The bill received support from several municipal government organizations, including the Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST) and the Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG).
“Unfortunately, the term is so narrow that it is seldom used to deter inappropriate and costly requests, leaving towns scrambling to comply. In some instances, individuals have engaged in conduct that puts municipal officials at risk, even outside of town hall.” COST’s testimony states.
WestCOG’s testimony encouraged the Government Administration and Elections Committee to also look at the number of requests being generated and submitted by artificial intelligence (AI).
The use of AI in public records requests comes, as with many of its applications, with benefits and drawbacks. AI has the potential to speed up government processing of records requests. FOIAXpress, a client used by many federal government agencies, has an AI client it advertises as being able to flag potential redactions prior to human review. Testimony before Congress has indicated the use of AI by public agencies could help reduce administrative burdens and backlogs of requests by speeding up how fast documents are reviewed and processed.
But AI is also being used to write and submit requests en masse. Municipalities, which tend to have few staff and resources dedicated to handling requests, have reported being overwhelmed by these types of requests.
“Because current law does not distinguish between natural persons and automated systems, agencies may be required to process these submissions in the same manner as requests made by real humans. This creates the potential for large numbers of automated or synthetic requests that absorb significant public staff time while providing little meaningful public participation, disrupt agency operations, and misuse transparency laws in ways that were not contemplated when the [FOIA] statute was enacted.” WestCOG wrote in its testimony.
Legislators are also considering a separate bill that would create a task force to study individuals using AI to submit requests.
Transparency Note: Reporter Katherine Revello is a member of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information (CCFOI) board of directors. CCFOI submitted tesitmony on these bills.
Was this article helpful?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
